Ex-Pope Benedict Xvi Hits Out At Critical Cardinal

Accra, Sept. 20 - (DPA/GNA) - Former pope Benedict XVI has sharply rebuked a cardinal who criticized him for resigning, according to private correspondence leaked Thursday by German tabloid newspaper Bild.

Some Catholic conservatives lament the turn taken by the Vatican under Benedict XVI's successor Francis, who is widely seen as less strict about enforcing church doctrine.

"I can very well understand the deep-seated pain that the end of my papacy has inflicted on you and many others," Benedict XVI wrote in November to a German cardinal, Bild said.

"But for some people and - it seems to me - also for you, the pain has turned into an anger that no longer merely concerns my resignation, but extends increasingly to my person and my papacy as a whole," it added.

Bild did not name the German cardinal, but he is believed to be Walter Brandmueller, an outspoken conservative critic of Pope Francis.

Brandmueller is one of four cardinals who, in 2016, openly challenged Francis' decision to slightly relax rules banning remarried divorcees from taking the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Writing to the German cardinal, Benedict also said: "A papacy itself is now being devalued and melted into the sorrow about the situation in which the Church currently finds itself."

It is unclear to what "situation" the retired pope was referring.

While he remains a cult figure among conservative critics of Francis, Benedict XVI has always avoided criticism of his successor.

Francis is now facing a crisis connected to multiple clergy sex abuse scandals.